


for all the love you've left behind (you can have mine)

by CloudCover (RainyForecast)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Farmer's Market, Kinda, M/M, Magical Realism, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:30:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyForecast/pseuds/CloudCover
Summary: The magic hits him as soon as he opens his car door.Hearth magic and earth magic and hedge magic, and probably more, all swirling in a cacophony that should have been overwhelming. But instead it feels like wading into…home.





	for all the love you've left behind (you can have mine)

The magic hits him as soon as he opens his car door.

It roils through the air, potent and heady. Hearth magic and earth magic and hedge magic, and probably more, all swirling in a cacophony that should have been overwhelming. But instead it feels like wading into…home. If that was a thing that was possible to do.

He hadn’t meant to stop here. He’s just passing through.

(He’s just passing through wherever he goes).

The car had been low on gas, though, and something about the little town had looked welcoming. Pretty clapboard houses and neat, tidy storefronts. It’s close enough to the sea for the air to be tinged with salt and for gulls to circle overhead, but far enough inland to shelter it from the harsher coastal storms. 

Against his better judgement, he’d stopped. He’d needed to eat something besides gas station beef jerky and McDonalds, after all.

Now he’s regretting it, a little. His kind are pulled toward magic. It’s going to be hard to leave this place. He can already tell.

He enters the market slowly, shaking his head when the enthusiastic kid with curly blond hair at the information table tries to hand him a flyer about composting and earthworms.

A table of trinkets catches his eye first, sun glinting off pretty stone beads and tiny twinkling bits of metal. Charms, he realizes, when he gets closer. Sweet, gentle little things, for keeping mosquitos away or to steady the steps of a baby just learning to walk. The charm maker smiles at him, but continues his work, knotting soft cotton string into a new charm (for soothing either cramps or morning sickness, it looks like).

He can’t help but pause to pet the charm maker’s two small, fluffy dogs.

“They’re called Brady and Louie,” the charm maker says. “I’m Conor.”

“Geno,” he says back. It’s not his real name. Names have power, and he’s learned the hard way not to give up his.

There’s a metalworker’s stall that is manned by a beaming man who looks like he’s stepped out of a history book about Vikings.

His neighbor sells wool and goat’s cheese from a flock of Cashmere goats who have hair as shiny and flowing as their master’s. The man has a doe and two kids in a little pen by his table for children to pet.

He rubs their silky little heads and wills himself not to settle into this place.

He accepts a sample of yellow-green sparkling wine from a dark-haired man with a Québécois accent. The wine is so magic-filled it nearly glows. It bubbles through him and makes him think, inexplicably, of when he was little. Small enough to be danced around his mother’s sunlit kitchen, balanced on top of his father’s shoes. Light as air.

“Perhaps the red?” the vintner says, at the look on his face. He eyes the other wine the vintner is holding out. It’s a deep purple, and he can smell its richly sensual scent from here. He thinks he’d better not. He thanks the man, and moves on.

“I’m Kris, by the way, nice to meet you,” the man calls after him. His shoulders twitch. Why. Why are people here throwing their names at him like he isn’t a complete stranger?

The man selling herbs has a puckish smile and is so clearly, clearly Fae-blooded that he doesn’t even stop. Calendula always makes him sneeze, anyhow, and people with even just a drop of Fae blood always know too much.

He smiles at the sweet-faced toddler on the man’s hip, though. And his heart twists when he sees the herb seller’s beautiful wife walk up to kiss her husband’s cheek, another little girl in tow. She hands her husband a lemonade, and it’s too much, so he walks on.

Near the back of the market, he catches the scent of freshly baked bread, heady and warm. He’s drawn to the source of the scent like a magnet.

The table is piled high with beautiful, rustic loaves. Different colors and shapes. Some studded with seeds: poppy, sesame, sunflower. There’s a cat nestled in a basket at the front, looking much like a loaf herself. She blinks knowing green eyes at him. A familiar. The entire area is redolent with hearth magic. It sings through his body, speaking of home, and warmth, and rest. And a little of loneliness, too. The hearth witch is lonely. How is that possible, he wonders, in such a place.

He couldn’t have stopped himself from stepping closer if he’d tried.

The hearth witch is a man, and he has his back to the front of his stall. He’s unloading a batch of what looks like fresh Borodinsky bread, of all things, from the back seat of an old pickup.

He can smell the bright tang of the rye flour, coriander, and caraway, underscored with dark, sweet molasses.

Home. It smells like home. He’s staring at the bread as the hearth witch sets it down, so he jumps when the man clears his throat.

“Can I help you?” the man asks politely, and he looks up from the bread in response, ready to make equally polite denials and move on.

His words die in his throat.

Broad shoulders, a worn red flannel shirt rolled up to show strong forearms. A face of contrasts: sharp cheekbones and soft, full lips. Dark hair and pale skin. Eyes that can’t decide whether to be green, or gold.

This is the hearth witch, whose magic feels so comforting, and so lonely.

He can’t speak.

“Oh!” the witch says. Then, more softly: “It’s you, isn’t it? It has to be you.”

What does he mean?

“I woke up this morning, and I just knew. I never make these, but I knew that today I had to.” The witch gestures at the Borodinsky bread. “And weeks ago— the starter. I just knew I had to get it going. So that the bread would taste right.”

“Smells like home,” he says, and the words come out rough, almost afraid.

“Please,” the witch says, hurriedly fumbling for a cutting board and a knife. “Please try some.” 

The slice he hands him is thick, spread with fresh butter and a sprinkling of sea salt. He takes it like he’s receiving something precious. It’s— it tastes like—

“I’m Sidney,” the witch says, kindly ignoring the tears spilling from his eyes and making their way to the corners of his mouth, seasoning the next bite he takes.

“Geno,” he says thickly, and the name feels more wrong in his mouth than it ever has before.

“You’re a long way from home, eh?” the witch says. “I can tell that much, at least. Your Shape is beautiful. I’ve never met an Ursine before.”

He goes still, staring at the witch in alarm. Even Fae are only supposed to be able to catch vague glimpse of his Shape. Who is this man? The only person, besides another Shifter, who is able to See him should be—

“Who are you?” he asks the witch, letting the words come out in a growl that’s not quite human. The witch isn’t afraid, though.

“I think,” the witch says instead. “I think …maybe your Intended.” Hope sizzles through the witch’s magic so brightly that his eyes glow with it, just a little.

He has to set the rest of his bread down and grip the edge of the table. “You…you’re my Intended?”

I belong to someone, his heart sings at him. And he belongs to you.

“Have to be,” the witch says, smiling so wide and so happy that it’s like looking at the sun. “Call me Sid.”

“Sid,” he says, wonderingly, and feels the rightness of it settle in his bones. “Sid.” It feels good in his mouth, just as intoxicating as the wine he’d had earlier. “Can call me…” he pauses. He’s been hiding himself for so long. Sid comes around the table, and takes his hands. He can feel Sid’s heartbeat in his wrists.

“Take your time,” Sid says, warmly. “As long as you need. I want— I want this, but I won’t ask for it. Give it to me freely when you’re ready.”

And it’s that gentle consideration that does it.

“Zhenya,” Zhenya tells Sid. “Call me Zhenya.”

When Zhenya kisses Sid, it tastes like rye and coriander, and when he takes Sid in his arms, it feels like finally, finally coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. 
> 
>  
> 
> Title is from [Call It Dreaming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYvO_tKeQJc/), by Iron and Wine 
> 
> You can find me as [creaturesofnarrative ](http://creaturesofnarrative.tumblr.com/) (main) and [knifeshoeoreofight](http://knifeshoeoreofight.tumblr.com/) (hockey blog) on Tumblr, and as @RainyForecast on Twitter. Come say hi and cry with me about how hockey both real and fictional has eaten our lives.


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